Charleston School of Law changes upset students, alumni

Last week, the school announced that it entered into a management services agreement with The InfiLaw System. That agreement may be the first step in selling the law school.

Infilaw owns three other for-profit law schools nationwide. Those schools are the Charlotte School of Law, Florida Coastal School of Law and the Phoenix School of Law.

Gabe Hogan is a third year law student who questions the reputation of those three schools.

"These are schools that are unranked schools, that I personally believe don't have the steam and charisma the Charleston School of Law has," he said.

Hogan was among close to 100 students who attended a meeting organized by the administrators of the law school and Infilaw Tuesday afternoon. While Hogan is worried about the reputation of other schools, one student said he is focusing on the reputation of his school.

"Our school is about our faculty and about our students," Logan Rogers said. "It's not about ownership or anything like that. We're still going to have the same core values."

However, Hogan said that if the law school is sold administrators will use his and past alumni's success to sell a program that will be completely different.

"They are going to be selling a product that we did not have," he said. "They're going to be touting our hard work and our achievements to sell something that is completely different than we had bought into, what we supported and what we gave our blood sweat and tears for."

Richard Gershon, the first Dean of the law school, also expressed his worry about the management change.

"I hope someone will listen to the overwhelming sentiment that this deal is a bad thing for the law school, and for Charleston," Gershon said via Facebook.

The Alumni Board of the law school was present at the meeting. The President of that board said she is disappointed with the answers that were given Tuesday night. She said the school has not answered when or if the school will be sold.

The spokesperson for the Charleston School of Law declined to comment on the story. Calls left for The InfiLaw System were not returned.